Starling (53 page)

written about him in her journal, not to mention the slightly scandalous things she’d written about her activities with Falco.
Luca’s voice softened. “Once I realized what the pages were, I
stopped reading them, Cassandra. I told myself what you had done
in my absence didn’t matter. I felt as if we were growing closer, as if
you
wanted
to grow closer.” He sighed. “I felt as if you had chosen
me.”
“I did,” Cass said. “I do.” She looked back at him. It was too easy
to imagine him skimming through the pages, his brow furrowing
slightly as he realized what he was reading. He was never very good
at showing emotion. Even now, he didn’t look particularly angry or
hurt, but Cass could see the pain in his clenched jaw and stiff posture. She had wounded him worse than the mooring post on which
he had caught his shoulder. And instead of begging for forgiveness as
she should, she was trying to blame Luca for reading part of her journal. “Thank you for respecting my privacy,” she whispered.
Luca shook his head. “You give me too much credit. I didn’t do it
for you. I did it to spare myself. I knew things might go sour with
Dubois and that I’d never survive a battle with him or my brother if
I didn’t have thoughts of you to keep me strong.” Pain glinted in his
eyes. “You were my reason not to die, Cass.”
“Luca, don’t talk like that,” she said. “There are a million reasons
to live.”
“Indeed,” he said. “But reasons to live are different from reasons
not to die.” After a moment he added, “How is it that you know him
and I don’t? Is he a friend of Madalena’s?”
“You don’t know him because he isn’t noble,” Cass said. “He’s an
artist.” She continued before Luca could take the opportunity to
scoff at how useless art was. “You know how Cristian killed the courtesan who worked for Joseph Dubois and hid her in my friend Liviana’s tomb?”
Luca nodded. Cass had told him everything that had happened
before he returned to Venice, everything except her dalliances with
Falco.
“I was there that night, just going for a walk as I used to do. Falco
was there too.”
Luca raised an eyebrow. “In the graveyard? Was he also just going
for a walk?”
“No, he and his friends were robbing crypts, stealing bodies and
selling them to Angelo de Gradi.” Cass hated admitting this, but she
couldn’t continue lying to Luca. If they were to have any future together at all, she had to be truthful. “The next day I received a threatening letter from the killer. I figured he must have seen me in the
graveyard. Falco tried to keep me safe.”
“I’m sure he did,” Luca said tightly. Another gondola floated by,
this one empty except for the gondolier. “I have to know, Cassandra.
Did you continue to see him after I returned to Venice?”
The wind whipped unruly pieces of Cass’s wig around her face.
She stepped back from the edge of the canal. “That’s the crazy thing,
Luca. He got a job far away and I assumed I would never see him
again. But then I went to Florence, clearly for you, and Falco was
there, working for Belladonna.”
“What a coincidence,” Luca said. “Do you not see that it’s likely
he’s also a member of the Order?”
“No. Absolutely not,” Cass said. There was no way Falco could
be a member of the Order of the Eternal Rose.